How to hide your WordPress version number…completely

Did you know that your WordPress version number is visible to everyone?

As Matt Mullenweg rightly pointed out several years ago, simply hiding your WordPress version number is not enough by itself to stay protected from potential threats (you should always be keeping your WordPress installation up-to-date).

But perhaps you have a client who has specifically requested its removal or maybe you just like keeping things on the safe side, either way there are a lot of tutorials out there on how to remove it from various areas but none that I’ve found showing how to remove it from every area at the same time.

The WordPress version number appears in three areas:

1. Generator Meta Tag in the Header

<metaname="generator"content="WordPress 3.3.2" />

2. Generator Tag in RSS Feeds

<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2</generator>

3. Query Strings on Scripts & Styles

If a script or style does not specify a version number when enqueued, the current version of WordPress is used.

foo.js?ver=3.3.2

One Block of Code to Rule Them All

Just enter this into your functions.php file and your WordPress version will be safely hidden from the public.

However, there is one small caveat to be aware of when using this method: This function will check to see if the ver query string matches the WordPress version number, so if the version of the enqueued script happens to be the exact same as the WordPress version then its version string will be removed as well.

This will occur rarely (if ever), especially when the current WordPress version is a point release, such as 3.3.2.